Original post

I needed to be the one responsable for creating a thread on this great thrash band. I used to not like this band until I saw Devin Townsend live a couple of months ago now I can't get enough of them because he is such a genius and creates some of the best music I've ever heard. My favorite album is SYL it kicks some serious ass. Gene Hoglans drumming on all of their albums is amazing. What do you guys think about them.

RyliukAccount deleted

22.04.2007 - 01:10

RyliukAccount deleted

Strapping Young Lad is a masterpiece amongst bands, of course Devin Townsend plays an enormous part on it, we have to accept that the man is kind a genius. Personally I think that the best albums from SYL are Alien and City , the SYL is a good one too, the more I hear Alien the more I like it, its amazing!!! but one can say that from most Strapping´s albums, and from the band itself.
Its important not to forget the side project "the Devin Townsend Band", great music too, if you see the big amount of albums from the too bands and the quality of the music, and the deep messages within, you understand that one have to be rather completely insane or from other planet to be able to create it. Thank you Devin.
Hear to:
Possesions
AAA
Oh my Fuckin God
z e e e e e e e e e n n n n n n n n n n n n !!!!
All their Stuff!!!!!!

Indeed, Mr. Townsend and the rest of this Lad group are favorites of mine, as is his self named band. I have actually been recently getting back into SYL a bit, listening to their self titled, latest, and 'Alien' lately. I have them all and can't wait until they resume the band again. As for now, I will enjoy everything that they have put out and am looking forward to Devin's newest concept album about Ziltoid. It looks grand.

And I don't know about you but I think this shirt is awesome. I might try and get it.

Yeah I got that shirt it's pretty sick. I'm pretty disapointed to hear Devin once again say that it's the end of Strapping Young Lad. Hopefully he comes back to it eventually or at least records some heavier records here and there. He'll probably return a few years from now with Strapping Young Lad and be heavier than ever.

even tough I like the music a lot espcailly when I am angry or frustrated. I can't help to feel that Strapping young lad is more of an underdog band and stays in the shadow of Devin Townsend's own project.

even tough I like the music a lot espcailly when I am angry or frustrated. I can't help to feel that Strapping young lad is more of an underdog band and stays in the shadow of Devin Townsend's own project.

i agree. i'm more a fan of SYL than i am of devin's solo work so my opinion's probably biased; i think SYL may have been an underdog because his solo work had more of a commercial sound.

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TLZAccount deleted

28.01.2008 - 12:03

TLZAccount deleted

Tir na nog: I would say it's the other way around. Devin Townsend solo-stuff seems to get way way less antenttion than SYL. However I guess it's depends on what kind of music people you hang out with, extreme metallers will prefer SYL, prog rockers would prefer the solo stuff.

harbinger: Commercial? What's commercial about it?
Extreme metallers need to realize that less extreme does not automaticly mean more mainstream.

Anyway, enough talk about (really) uninteresting things and onto what this thread is about: this great fucking band!
I've been a fan of SYL for a couple of years now, and I still rank City as their best effort. But s/t, Alien and The New Black is also great. Did anybody see the live-video from Download where he played The New Black? Devin's a comedian! At the first mellow part of the song he sang softly and people started clapping and then in between his gentle singing he spit out "STOP CLAPPING!".

well I am far from a prog rock, actually I hate most prog metal but only Devin Townsend is an exception.
what I mean is Devin Townsend's project is deep and emotonial and atmospheric, while Strapping Young Lad is all about the big middelfinger and f*cking around so it feel like a joke. how ever they are mine favorite Death/Thrash metal band espcailly with that industrial side to it and I caal feel with lyrics as well because like Dev I have mental health problems.

harbinger: Commercial? What's commercial about it?
Extreme metallers need to realize that less extreme does not automaticly mean more mainstream.

i didn't mean more mainstream when i said commercial. i just couldn't think of a better term when i posted that. i meant something like it's more acceptable by a vast group of people than SYL because it isn't as extreme. and i'm pretty sure we all know that the less extreme it is, the more likely it is to reach a wider, more varied, audience. pop, unfortunately, is a perfect example.

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TLZAccount deleted

29.01.2008 - 21:00

TLZAccount deleted

Off course less extreme music is going to reach more people, but think for a second. Why do we all proclaim to hate mainstream music? It's not simply because it is soft, it is because it is adapted. Thus not a creation of the artists true spirit and heart, it is without integrity, it is as someone's music is a lie since it is not a sincere expression. The problem is that most people seem to have forgotten why we hate commercialism and just declare anything extreme enough. But what if someone wants to express something else than extremity, what if someone just wants to express something that does not express well in the confines of extreme metal, but expresses well in prog rock? Or even "worse", what if someone *sincerely* not out of greed, but out of passion want to express something within the genre of pop? Are they commercial bastards as well? I think not.

I listen to among The Cardigans. A pop-band(or pop-rock). Yes, some of their songs are catchy as hell and prettymuch everyone could like them but -still- I see and feel depth in them, and to me that's far more important than being extreme. Being extreme can genereate good music, it's a good way to express something intense, but far more important is to have depth, and essence. This is way I don't really find Cannibal Coprse to be all that great, extreme but not much depth. (And plus I don't really find their feeling to be all that extreme, a lot seems like rock-riffs played in tremolo.) I know it's politically incorrect of me to say this about CC. (Ironic, since metal claims to not adhere to political correctness, but the truth is that it has it's own political correctness, although different from the mainstream one is still a form of political correctness.)

I'm writing in very general terms here, but the bottom line: if Devin wants to make music, be it non-extreme ... does that really matter as long as he makes music from his heart?

Off course less extreme music is going to reach more people, but think for a second. Why do we all proclaim to hate mainstream music? It's not simply because it is soft, it is because it is adapted. Thus not a creation of the artists true spirit and heart, it is without integrity, it is as someone's music is a lie since it is not a sincere expression. The problem is that most people seem to have forgotten why we hate commercialism and just declare anything extreme enough. But what if someone wants to express something else than extremity, what if someone just wants to express something that does not express well in the confines of extreme metal, but expresses well in prog rock? Or even "worse", what if someone *sincerely* not out of greed, but out of passion want to express something within the genre of pop? Are they commercial bastards as well? I think not.

I listen to among The Cardigans. A pop-band(or pop-rock). Yes, some of their songs are catchy as hell and prettymuch everyone could like them but -still- I see and feel depth in them, and to me that's far more important than being extreme. Being extreme can genereate good music, it's a good way to express something intense, but far more important is to have depth, and essence. This is way I don't really find Cannibal Coprse to be all that great, extreme but not much depth. (And plus I don't really find their feeling to be all that extreme, a lot seems like rock-riffs played in tremolo.) I know it's politically incorrect of me to say this about CC. (Ironic, since metal claims to not adhere to political correctness, but the truth is that it has it's own political correctness, although different from the mainstream one is still a form of political correctness.)

I'm writing in very general terms here, but the bottom line: if Devin wants to make music, be it non-extreme ... does that really matter as long as he makes music from his heart?

lol, you're preaching about feeling and emotion in music to someone that loves classical music. yeah, i love SYL (and a few other select bands that are more along those lines), but that's not my all-time favorite type of metal. i prefer prog/power or prog-rock over any other sub-genre.

so on the side that you don't like cannibal corpse because they lack depth, i totally agree with you. if the music doesn't have depth, it isn't something that's reached it's full potential IMO. i'm not, however, someone that deems things "not extreme enough for my liking". i'd take antonin dvorak's compositions over most "extreme" metal bands any day of the week. i'm not a person most would try to fit into that category.

i wasn't saying devin's solo work lacks any emotion or feeling, because it's chock full of it. i was simply stating that because it isn't as extreme as SYL means a better chance at reaching a wider audience. i've played both his solo work and SYL for some of my non-metal friends, and all of them liked the solo stuff more. i didn't ask why because it's the fact that in the US music as extreme as SYL isn't as widely accepted, and that's what they've adapted to through the cultural boundaries that have come to be in this country.

and as for your last statement about devin's solo work, i never talked down about it. i love his solo stuff just as much as anything else he's ever done, inluding his time with steve vai. he's a prodigy that deserves the full respect of any musician or music-lover, for god's sake. i didn't mean i disagree with it at all. i was only giving my opinion in the popularity difference between his solo project and SYL.

well I am far from a prog rock, actually I hate most prog metal but only Devin Townsend is an exception.
what I mean is Devin Townsend's project is deep and emotonial and atmospheric, while Strapping Young Lad is all about the big middelfinger and f*cking around so it feel like a joke. how ever they are mine favorite Death/Thrash metal band espcailly with that industrial side to it and I caal feel with lyrics as well because like Dev I have mental health problems.

I remember really liking his City album when my social anxiety was at it's wrost. The song detox really describes the paranoia and how people with social anxiety often can see the world. (It can also mean many other things, but that's how I interept it.)

I was just using it as an example and I was talking in general, sorry I didn't mean to assume any opinions. (And Cannibal Corpse was an example as well, I'm probably almost alone about my opinion about them.)

Hehe, I guess we kinda misunderstood eachother. (And that just sparked me letting out some of my general ideas on music.)

For the record: Although most would of assosciate prog rock of the guitar-based music forms with classical extreme metal bear a lot of resemblence too. Unlike rock they are both genres that are more instrumentaly focused than vocally(growl rareley carry melodies). Besides, I find Vivaldi's Winter Allegro Non Monot to be more extreme than a lot of metall I've heard. Some of the parts are just intense! (And no; I'm not arguing with you or assuming you have a oposite opinion here, just mentioning it.) The norweian metal-zine heavymetal.no posted a couple of articles on the artistic merits of metal and some ideology stuff on certain bands, here they also dwelved into this stuff. Maybe I should transelate it?

I was just using it as an example and I was talking in general, sorry I didn't mean to assume any opinions. (And Cannibal Corpse was an example as well, I'm probably almost alone about my opinion about them.)

Hehe, I guess we kinda misunderstood eachother. (And that just sparked me letting out some of my general ideas on music.)

For the record: Although most would of assosciate prog rock of the guitar-based music forms with classical extreme metal bear a lot of resemblence too. Unlike rock they are both genres that are more instrumentaly focused than vocally(growl rareley carry melodies). Besides, I find Vivaldi's Winter Allegro Non Monot to be more extreme than a lot of metall I've heard. Some of the parts are just intense! (And no; I'm not arguing with you or assuming you have a oposite opinion here, just mentioning it.) The norweian metal-zine heavymetal.no posted a couple of articles on the artistic merits of metal and some ideology stuff on certain bands, here they also dwelved into this stuff. Maybe I should transelate it?

Btw. Sorry for being so much off-topic!

this is my last off-topic post, promise! i'll even go as far as getting back into talking about SYL when i'm done with this.

when i was 13 and in the marching band at school we played an arrangment of antonin dvorak's new world symphony; 5 movements, although extremely shortened. before i was exposed to music that could evoke emotion like that all i knew were bands like the offspring, bush, soundgarden, etc. once i was old enough to process that music could spark emotions in someone WITHOUT the use of a vocalist things changed drastically from that perspective. at that point i went from listening to alternative/nu-metal all the time to changing it up and listening to classical music just as often. i don't really listen to it like i used to anymore, but i'll still go through a kick and listen to only classical for a few days at a time. i'm currently obsessed with howard shore's soundtrack to the lord of the rings trilogy. some of it's simply amazing.

but yeah, music just isn't true without emotion, IMO. and SYL (thread plug!) is chock full of it the whole way through their discography. i wouldn't say as much in the new black, but it's still there. city, by far, has to be the their most emotional release.

edit: and btw, happy freakin birthday.

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OpiumAccount deleted

31.01.2008 - 10:49

OpiumAccount deleted

Currently diggin' their sound again after an extensive break. I exalted these guys back when I was 15/16, one of the few bands that actually helped me delve deeper into Metal, as a whole. I owe it to my bro for showing me their music Never looked back since

As for faves, City and SYL are 1st and 2nd, respectively, then The New Black. Alien seemed more rushed than The New Black, to me and it was ultimately the most difficult to appreciate. Then again, I wasn't too interested in their debut for its zaniness

----
"You're all the same, the lot of you, with your long hair and faggot clothes. Drugs, sex, every sort of filth. And you hate the police, don't you? You make it easy."

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TLZAccount deleted

31.01.2008 - 18:36

TLZAccount deleted

Humour. Although Strapping Young Lad is a serious project, and is something more than just humour they do have a lot of (Devin's twisted) humour in it. I mean, the song "Love" is basicly making fun of all the "tough" take metallbands sometimes takes on the subject. I find a lot of their songs to be humerous and have a serious undertone at the same time.

If you see concert-clips with then you'll see that Devin's almost a comedian from time to time.

SYL ain't meant to be taken 100% seriously, that's for sure. Anyway, I love all of their 5 studio albums, should still get the live DVD.. The twisted humor of Devin and his anger are a great mix, and one just gotta love Gene Hoglan's drumming.

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stigma77Account deleted

04.02.2008 - 19:11

stigma77Account deleted

Gene Hoglan is undoubtfully one of the best drummers in the business (hear Death and Dark Angel for more!!! )

Gene Hoglan is undoubtfully one of the best drummers in the business (hear Death and Dark Angel for more!!! )

Devin Townsend is an insane genious!! Ja Ja Ja!!

I like the "Alien" and "City" Albums.

I think Strapping Young Lad are my favourite band ever. He is a crazy, inventive genius and the production on his music is just amazing. I first heard The New Black whih at the time I thought was so HEAVY, but then I bought City and I was blown away. So heavy and fast and WOW! I mean some people might think he's not that great but I love him and Strapping Young Lad.

I also like the song SYL which is just crazy and its like fuck fuck fuck.
Thats all

I think Strapping Young Lad are my favourite band ever. He is a crazy, inventive genius and the production on his music is just amazing. I first heard The New Black whih at the time I thought was so HEAVY, but then I bought City and I was blown away. So heavy and fast and WOW!

Yeah, "City" is a pretty dense and intense album. with the guitars, drum, bass, vocals, samples, samples, and more samples laid out at any point, plus some of the ridiculously fast tempos, it starts throttling the listener and doesn't let up until "Room 429"...

i liked "The New Black" well enough until i found and picked up "City."

I think Strapping Young Lad are my favourite band ever. He is a crazy, inventive genius and the production on his music is just amazing. I first heard The New Black whih at the time I thought was so HEAVY, but then I bought City and I was blown away. So heavy and fast and WOW!

Yeah, "City" is a pretty dense and intense album. with the guitars, drum, bass, vocals, samples, samples, and more samples laid out at any point, plus some of the ridiculously fast tempos, it starts throttling the listener and doesn't let up until "Room 429"...

i liked "The New Black" well enough until i found and picked up "City."

"City" just blew it out of the water.

if you guys both like the new black i'd definitely suggest checking out "Alien". it's a lot more aggressive and less upbeat. plus the atmosphere is out of this world. like that's out of the ordinary for any SYL cd..lol.